We're cupping the CoE Brasils today and tomorrow. We'll go through all of the samples today and select our top 15 coffees for a re-roast and re-evaluation on Friday.
I'll post our favorites...
Emily

Okay, update: we cupped all 29 samples and weeded it down to 15, which we'll recup tomorrow. We'll be revisiting #s 29,23,22,2,15,4,5,26,3,1,16,8,6,18 and 20
I've also posted a few pics from today's cupping, which can be found by going to our photo album and them miscellaneous. Enjoy!

This was posted on the Roaster's Guild members board. Thought I'd toss it out here, too, to see if any of you have ideas on this. If you do, please email Emily at emily@cafeimports.com
Thanks!

Hello, all.
Hoping that some of you can shed light on a problem we've experienced in the cupping lab. We have some theories, but are hoping that someone knows the answer to this...
Lately, we've been noticing that some of the grounds are falling before the coffee is even set to break. Sometimes this will happen on just one of the cups of a given coffee, othertimes it happens to all of the cups of a given coffee. It seems to happen most often (that we've noticed) on naturally-processed coffees.
Is this a water issue? A processing issue? Soap residue on the cups? Grind? Combination?
If anyone else has experienced this problem and can shed some light, it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!
Emily, Cafe Imports

We will be closed on Monday, January 15th in observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
Please plan your orders accordingly. Thank you.

In yesterday's CoE Brazil Auction, we were winning bidder on:

lot #3 Fazenda Pedra Preta - Guilherme Dias De Castro and
lot #16 Fazenda Cachoeira Da Grama - Gabriel De Carvalho Dias.
For more info on these farms, please visit the CoE website at www.cupofexcellence.org

The lot #16 is from the same farmer who supplies us with our Brazil Yellow Bourbon Natural. So, those of you who are loyal to this coffee may want to try some of this CoE winner!

These coffees are already milled at origin, so should ship very soon. Some of each lot will be available in our partial bag CoE program. I'll post again when it's here and available to ship from our warehouse.

Also, you should note that these coffees are being sent packaged in special foil packaging so should age better than washed and semiwashed Brazils generally do.

A recent study in Nicaragua shows that specialty coffee, overall, benefits from the Cup of Excellence program.
For more information, please read the attached article.
Download file

The Ethiopian Kafa Natural Forest Coffee is landed and is being parked at Continental Terminals. This coffee originates from the birthplace of coffee (said to be near Bench Maji) and comes from plants up to 300 years old!
We found this coffee to have fruit and floral-perfumey notes, along with some sweet, almost pina colada-like flavors and nice acidity.
Call today to arrange delivery directly from Continental Terminals.
800.278.5065

This occurred in the cupping room the other day. Granted, it was a much more destinctive smiley before I ran to get the camera...